FOXBORO – There was a passing of the pads following the Patriots’ first training camp practice.

Do not mistake this for a passing of the torch.

The oldest man on the Patriots’ roster is still in charge of the offense, which is why, as Thursday’s practice on the fields behind Gillette Stadium concluded, Tom Brady handed his pads off to 22-year-old Jimmy Garoppolo.

Welcome to the NFL, kid.

Soon to be 37, Brady, meanwhile, is preparing for his 15th season in the league, the 14th since he took the position over from an injured Drew Bledsoe in 2001.

“It goes pretty fast so, I think you just appreciate it and there’s very few people that have the opportunity that I have and I’m very appreciative of it,” Brady said, reflecting on training camps past as well as the present. “You never know when the last one’s going to be, so you just appreciate the moments that you have.

“Every year is something different and this could be your last training camp. You never know. So you’ve got to make it count and you can’t take anything for granted in the NFL. So I try to do the best I can for this team and, hopefully, it leads to a great year.”

While Brady’s NFL mortality is certainly coming closer into view, given their needs the Patriots surprised some – and shocked others – with their decision to invest a second-round pick in this year’s draft in Garoppolo, who put up numbers at Eastern Illinois that erased the names of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton from the school’s record books.

That would be the same Jimmy Garoppolo who had just turned 9 years old when Brady recorded the first completion of his NFL career, a 6-yarder to tight end Rod Rutledge.

But while Brady may have been more than willing to hand off his pads to Garoppolo at the end of Thursday’s practice, the fact that he spent time after practice working with tight end Rob Gronkowski served as further evidence that he isn’t ready to hand over the team’s offense to either the rookie or Ryan Mallett, his backup since 2011.

“It feels great (to be back on the field),” said Brady. “I’m excited to be out here with my teammates and working to get better.

“It’s a long training camp and I think we’ve got to string a lot of good days together in order to be the team that we want to be. It’s going to be a lot of effort, a lot work. There’s no easy way about it. You’ve just got to grind and put the work in and listen to the coaches, try to make improvements, and hopefully when we start the season we’ll be a lot better team than we are now.”

Page 2 of 2 - Brady will be looking to make improvements on a 2013 season in which his numbers (4,343 yards passing, 25 touchdowns, a quarterback rating of 87.3) waned – a development that can be attributed, at least in part, to a major change in personnel among his receivers as well as injuries (to Gronkowski in particular).

“I think it’s about making improvements and I think it goes from the guy who’s the newest on the team to the guy who’s the oldest on the team,” Brady answered when asked to look ahead. “I don’t think you ever have it all figured out.

“You try to come out here. You work hard to put yourself in a good position to compete and when you get your opportunity you’ve got to go out and make it happen so it’s really everybody. There’s nobody that’s immune to it. You’ve got to put the work in.”

Which is precisely what Brady was doing with Gronkowski at the end of practice Thursday.

“You’ve got to give it all you’ve got and, like I said, hopefully on a daily basis you continue to make improvements, but this game is a very humbling game,” said Brady. “You can’t ever think that you’ve got it all figured out. You’ve got to go out and prove it every single day.”

Glen Farley may be reached at gfarley@enterprisenews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @GFarley_ent.